in the midst of last december's  holiday season rants about the secularization of all things christmas (which i'm guessing is prolly an annual event but..), right-thinking juists were passed a BIG-ASS hit of ideological crack in the form of at least three articles with headlines screaming stuff like  "DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE BANNED IN CLASSROOM". as those who didn't experience immediate cardiac arrest, implode or melt into gooey pools before clicking their way to the content di...

good damn thing the author of that statement decided to blacklist me (only the 2nd time ive been blacklisted to my knowledge and both by the same person).   gotta be one of the most unintentionally hilarious lines i've seen in over a year at ju.  and so damn true too.

here's a little math problem for those of you who are into that kinda thing: given the following: a. gas in la is close to $3.00 a gallon. b. gas in iraq is only $.05 a gallon because the government pays a subsidy to keep the price low.  c. the price of gas in kuwait is $.79 a gallon. d. iraq now imports $240,000,000 to $400,000,000 worth of fuel per month. e. the combined cost of procuring fuel for iraq and selling it atta loss is estimated to be $6.9 b...

election night will never be the same. and with him goes any chance i had to be person of the week.  

by simply muttering a simple word on cnn's 'inside politics'--ironically, the same word most often used to describe his writing--columnist robert novak outted himself indefinitely from his job at cnn.  novak and fellow guest james carville were interupting each other during a discussion about florida congresswoman katherine harris' (r-fl) upcoming campaign for the us senate.  rep harris, who came to national attention during the 2000 presidential election debacle, is considered by ...

sixty years ago this saturday--august 6, 1945--the first atomic bomb ever used as a weapon of war exploded about 2000' above the city of hiroshima, japan.  in an instant, the city was flattened; 80,000 of the estimated 250,000 people located there were killed instantly.  another 60,000 would eventually fall victim to radiation produced by the bomb. three days later, a similar bomb was exploded over the japanese city of nagasaki. at the time, the usa was the only nation on e...

while shiites and sunni representatives working on iraq's draft constitution may be able to agree on much, it appears both groups are on the same page on at least one issue. they both wanna dump the requirement by which women are guaranteed 25% of the seats in iraq's national assembly. they've obviously learned more than we might have realized from american politics cuz these guys got the whole majority vs minority anti-quota schtick down pat. check this out: "Since men and women are...

it's not often i'm able to applaud the words and/or actions of republican party officials (sad, cuz i can remember a time when it happened much more frequently).   as of thursday, i found myself doin it for the second time in two days on 7/14/2005 (thursday  in other words), in a speech delivered to this year's annual naacp convention in milwaukee, republican national committee chief ken mehlman came clean bout one of the party's dirty lil not-so-secrets.    ...

consider this part 3 of an ongoing lewis carroll-inspired peek at events and policies through the looking glass (parts 1  Link   and 2 Link .) if karl rove did nothing illegal or innapropriate as regards novak's announcement that valerie plame worked for the cia and was married to ambassador joe wilson, wouldn't it have been easier on everyone if he'd stepped up to a microphone 2 years ago and let us know that was the case?  as one of gwbush's closest associates (if no...

this is the second of what may easily become a series of observations predicated on the possibility the 'real life' we're living is actually the product of lewis carroll's imagination as he pens a new work entitled 'washington through the looking glass'.    new york times reporter, judy miller, is spending her first night as an involuntary guest of the federal detention center in alexandria, va., after being held in contempt of court by us federal district justice thomas hogan ...

although that headline might seem to be a clash between plural and singular, the subject of that title isn't plural (like more than one liberal) but the singular word 'liberals'.     how does it disengage brains?   i dunno.  it has something to do with its use as the subject of a simple sentence.  as in 'liberals _________________________  a normal brain will then make the effort to fill in the blank with a predicate and pos...

asserting the naval base at guantanamo, cuba isn't legally 'american soil' is such an outrageous reversal of realty  it aint difficult for me to imagine those who first conceived the scam buying into it themselves.  thing is, you can hire wolfgang puck to make a pie outta mooseshit and, a great chef like puck may be able to whip  up something that looks and smells just like boysenberry.   sooner or later, though, all but your most gullible guests are gonna realize yo...

this is over a week old but it blew me away--especially after seeing gwb last night explaining how iraq (which the cia reportedly has now designated as the main global location for training and motivating islamic terrorists) is so crucial to the war on terror. apparently the opinions of the rest of the world (or parts of it anyway) and international law really do matter--much more that previously acknowledged--to  this administration and its new cia director.   time ...

a suggestion which occured to me while perusing current article titles.